Ice Skating

We went ice skating today. We heard about an outdoor rink at the Belmar mall. So we drove up there. It was a warm day, but VERY windy. The ice rink was in a wind tunnel and it was shady and small. So we drove back home and went to our local indoor rink.

Jenelle has never been ice skating before. Her little ice skates looked so cute on her. She could barely hobble out to the rink. We tried skating with her, but we were doing all the work...holding her up and pulling her around. We noticed the other kids had these little ice walkers so we got one for Jenelle. Check out the video below.


Jenelle started out ice walking. She walked all around the rink a few times. Then we taught her to glide. She would walk, walk, glide. Walk, walk, glide. At the end of the day Jenelle was going really fast and turning. She had a great time. We were going to go out to lunch, but Jenelle didn't want to leave the rink. I think we found our winter sport!

The best present ever!

This present has come as quite a surprise to me. Jenelle has had a dry pull-up for four nights this week! Jenelle has had a tough time staying dry for a 2 hour nap. Two weeks ago Jenelle had a nap on the last night of Awana and she stayed dry. She told EVERYONE at Awana about her dry pull-up. Everyone praised her and told her how great it was. Of course, praise coming from someone else must make more of an impression than praise from mom. That's ok! Hopefully, this is a new trend and I can stop buying pull-ups. She is going to have a sleep over with Eme this week. She asked why. I said she could have sleep overs now because we don't have to worry about her peeing on her friend in the middle of the night.

Buyer's Remorse

Jenelle has been asking for Pixos for over a year now. It's a craft thing with a million little colored balls that stick together when wet. A little over a year ago when there were all those recalls for lead paint, Pixos was one of them. Apparently, Pixos is now out in the lead free version. Jenelle has been asking for them again. I spent way too much on Pixo and bought the starter set.

Today Jenelle woke up with a dry pull-up. She made it all the way through the night without going pee! Usually the pull-up weighs 3lbs in the morning. This is a very big deal so I gave her the Pixo as a reward.

The Pixo box says for ages 4+. It should read 8+. I was so frustrated with the thing! I thought it would be a craft that would require very little parental help I was SO wrong. She needed help loading the pen. She needed help holding the pen. She needed help switching to a different color on the pen. She needed help dispensing the balls out of the pen. She needed help getting the balls to land in the right spot once dispensed. She needed help spraying the water to make the Pixos stick. It took over an hour to make one little dog. The finished product isn't even that sturdy. I know it will break soon.

I wish I never bought Pixos. If you have one wrapped underneath your tree, take it back to the store! There are much better crafts out there.

Pixo update: She is doing much better. She even made her own Christmas tree.

The Nutcracker

I haven't blogged in a while! We've been busy this December. We went to see The Nutcracker a few weeks ago. We went downtown and had lunch on the16th Street Mall. We did a little window shopping. Jenelle got to ride on Daddy's shoulders and then we we off to the Ellie Caukins Opera House to see the Nutcracker. Jenelle has had a few years of ballet lessons and she loves to dance so I thought it would be a fun thing to do. I've never even seen the Nutcracker.

We had seats in the first row of the 4th balcony. When we were walking down to our seats, Jenelle got a little vertigo. I was even a little dizzy. We were WAY up there. Jenelle sat on my lap for the entire performance. My favorite dance was the snow fairies. It was so beautiful to see the ballerinas dance while snow floated down upon them. Jenelle was fascinated by the whole thing. I think she even picked up some new ballet moves!

Am I old or am I young?

I went to the ARC thrift store today. Jenelle is going to be an angel in the school Christmas play and I needed a white shirt for her. Well Tuesday is senior citizen day at ARC. So as I was checking out the cashier asked if I was a senior. I said, "what?" "Are you a senior citizen?" I think (I HOPE) the guy was just asking everybody. I might have some gray hair, but I'm not going to qualify for the senior discount anywhere. I won't be going to ARC on senior's day anytime soon. :)

We went to the mall after ARC. They have a bunch of skin care kiosks in the mall. You can't get around them. They seem to all be staffed with good looking young men and women with European accents. So some guy asked if I wanted a free lotion sample. "No thanks." Then he says to me, "How do you take care of your skin? You have great skin. Tell me what products you use." He goes on to lavish me with more compliments and questions. I said, "I eat green leafy vegetables." He said, "Let me guess your age." At that point I walked away. He wasn't being sincere. He was just trying to rope me into his product line. After being insulted by the ARC guy it was nice to be complimented by the lotion guy.

Visit to Santa

Jenelle and I went to the mall to visit Santa today. This was Jenelle's first official visit to Santa. I think we took her when she was one year old, but that doesn't count. Jenelle has been too scared to return to Santa's lap. One year we went to the second floor of the mall and waved to Santa down below. One year, she walked with her eyes closed past Santa's village only to run smack into the wall. (I was too busy waving to Santa to notice her veering off course.) When she said she wanted to see Santa this year, I was pleasantly surprised.

Thankfully, there was no line. Jenelle wrote a list of all the toys she wanted. She sat on Santa's lap and he read her list. One of the things on the list was a water gun. Santa asked who she was going to squirt. She said "mommy". She giggled and laughed. Santa pulled out a coloring book for her. She said in a loud surprised voice, "How did you know I like to color?" Santa was very sweet. He put her list into his belt and wished her a Merry Christmas.

I got suckered into buying one of the ridiculously priced photos. How could I not commemorate the momentous occasion though?

Jenelle is very into Santa this year. But don't think we are neglecting Jesus. Jesus is the reason for the season! Jenelle set up her nativity scene. We acted out the Christmas story. Jenelle has been giving birth to Jesus a lot (she pretends she is Mary and she puts a doll up her shirt).

If the hustle and bustle of Christmas is getting you down...spend some time remembering the miracle of Christmas.

Funny things Jenelle says...

Can tumble weeds eat me?
I don't know who to marry. Sammy, Zachery or Aiden.
When I'm a teenager, I'm going to get a haircut like yours and die my hair rainbow.
Did you know that music can cheer you up?
Why does a clock have 12 hours? Why not a hundred?
I want to be a princess mom when I grow up.
Don't I look Pinkalicious?
I'm going to sleep with my window open so I can hear Santa.

Pizzelles

One of the foods that I miss from Christmas are pizzelles. We always seemed to have these around for all the holidays on my dad's side of the family. Here are some interesting pizzelle facts:

Pizzelles are Italian waffle-like cookies made from flour, sugar, eggs, and butter and typically flavored with anise or vanilla. The name pizzelle comes from the Italian pizze, meaning "flat" or "round."

Believed to be the oldest cookie in Italy, pizzelles have a unique history. According to legend, in 700 BCE, snakes had infested Abruzzo, in south central Italy, and after they were banished, the townspeople celebrated by eating pizzelle. To this day, pizzelles are eaten to celebrate the Festival of the Snakes, now known as the Feast Day of San Domenico.

I bought a pizzelle iron years and years ago. I never managed to finish one batch of pizzelles. They kept sticking to my iron and it was a complete mess. I even asked for tips at the Italian deli where I bought the iron. But no luck.

This year, I decided to try it again. The first cookies completely stuck to the iron. The batter was stuck in every nook and cranny of the iron. I scraped it all out. Curt said it might take a few tries. I put too much batter in and the cookie smooshed all over the iron, but at least they stopped sticking. I didn't know pizzelle making was such an art. I have a great appreciation of the cookie now and the effort that goes into making it. I'm hoping to pass down the tradition to Jenelle. The cookies turned our really yummy!!!!!

Second snow

We got a ton of snow over Thanksgiving. So we took the sled out to the park. Jenelle loves to sled. She is even going down the hill by herself now. You can bring sleds to Jenelle's school and sled during recess. So this morning I loaded up the sled. I hope she shares it. I hope she doesn't lose it.

Jenelle has even been asking about bigger sled hills. It's so great to see my extremely cautious daughter wanting to do something daring. I'll let you know how the bigger hill goes.

Curt built this snowman. It didn't take long before the hoodlums in our neighborhood knocked its head off.

20 days till Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm stuffed! We had a fun Thanksgiving. Chris's whole family flew in for the weekend. Mom and Jim were came over, too. I thought the food was especially good this year. Chris made the turkey. We played our favorite game, Mexican Train dominoes. Jim was vicious; cutting off trains. Carter (Chris' brother) kept calling Curt "Ken". It was a nice relaxing Thanksgiving (except for all the cleaning and cooking we did before everyone came over). It was a late night. Everyone left a little after 10pm. Jenelle didn't get to bed until 11pm, but she wasn't even crabby.

Jenelle and Zack really played nice together. They played on the scooter. They played their own version of Dora dominoes. Jenelle even got Zack to color with her. (Coloring if her favorite thing to do right now.) Jenelle would make a great big sister. She really enjoyed being a tattle tale on Zack. "Zack isn't eating his turkey."

Jenelle is in to dressing up and looking pretty. So she wore her fancy blue dress. She got gravy all over it, but who cares. I enjoyed watching her dance and twirl and sparkle!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

We got a dog!

For the weekend at least. Her name is Kaylee. Jen and Jason were having a weekend getaway by themselves and they needed someone to watch their dog. Jenelle's first question after Kaylee was dropped of was, "Can we keep her?" Jenelle really really wants a dog. At dinner we talked about what her responsibilities would be. She was ok with the walking and feeding part. When we mentioned the picking up the poop part, she immediately lost interest.

Jenelle has been very cute with the dog. Kaylee knows a few tricks like sit and shake. Jenelle wanted her to jump through a hula hoop for a treat. Well, Kaylee is a scared and timid little thing. She walked all the way around the hula hoop and then ate the treat. We took Kaylee for a walk and gave her lots of love. I think Jenelle is going to be very sad when Kaylee goes home. We'll pet sit for them again.

Grandparents Day

Every year at Jenelle's school they have a grandparents day. The kids put on a little show and then the grandparents get to spend some time in the classroom. This year the theme was the Sound of Music. The kindergarten class sang Edelweiss. Jenelle has been singing that song around the house for a month. She is just the cutest! Grandma-ma and Jim made it to school even though Grandma-ma isn't feeling well. They enjoyed the performance and were very glad they made it.




This weekend was also the silent auction. The school does a silent auction for a fundraiser. Auntie Chris came with us. There was a ton of stuff on auction! Chris won a lot of stuff. She got a dinosaur basket, a chocolate basket and some Christmas stuff. I ended up getting an Advent calendar and a play date with Mrs. Hart. Jenelle will get to enjoy an afternoon at the park and ice cream with her teacher.

Jenelle was excited for the silent auction. She wore her fancy Christmas dress from last year. The 8th graders babysat for the evening. When we picked her up they said that she had danced all around and put on a show for them.

Christmas music

We have been listening to Christmas music since Halloween. I know what some of you are saying, but I love Christmas music! Two radio stations started playing Christmas music today. They will be playing holiday music from now until Christmas. Christmas music makes me happy and gets us in the holiday spirit. Jenelle will be singing along to all the songs. She even sings the station advertisement: "Kosy 101".

I bought my stamps today. I just need to get going on my shopping!

First Day of Snow

We woke up to snow this morning. It was absolutely beautiful. Jenelle was all excited to play in it, but her boots don't fit. I tried to cram her big feet into last years boots, but she complained that the boots hurt. So I sent her off to school with just gloves.

I spent the morning trying to find her a pair of boots. All the size 12 and 13 boots were gone! I went to Walmart. They only had "fashion" boots in her size. Fashion boots are not waterproof. Next I tried Target and bought a pair of $30 boots. Now, $30 is way more than I wanted to spend. So I tried the kids consignment shop. No boots there. I was getting a little frustrated by this point. I guess I would be keeping the expensive boots. I decided to drive to one more Walmart. I found a ton of boots there. I got her a lovely pair of pink boots for $14. Hurray. Now I just have the hassle of returning the other pair. :(
It better snow a lot this year!

Happy Halloween

This year we went to a Halloween party. Jenelle went as Tinker Bell. I was a hula dancer and Curt was a pirate. Jenelle had a great time trick-or-treating. She ran from house to house with 6 other boys who were dressed up as characters from Star Wars. She is all about the candy at this age. We actually had mild weather this year. Most years we have Jenelle so bundled up that you can't tell what her costume is.


Jenelle likes to sort things. Before she plays with her Polly Pockets she sorts all the dresses and matches up all the shoes. She does the same thing with her candy. She has all the lolly-pops together, all the tootsie rolls together, etc. She has them spread out all over the floor at the moment. Curt keeps asking what he can eat. We'll keep the candy around for a while and then Curt will take it to work.

We had a lot of fun carving the pumpkins. Jenelle wanted the pumpkins to have scary faces this year. We always cook the pumpkin seeds and I usually end up burning them, but this year the seeds turned out very yummy.

Growth Burn

Jenelle had Awana on Tuesday night. She was running around the halls with Eme when they tripped over each other. They both went down hard with Eme landing right on top of Jenelle. Jenelle got her first rug burn. She screamed loud enough for all of Awana to hear about it. It did look rather painful. After about 5 minutes of crying she stopped and was off running again. We put a band-aid on it and she was good to go.

The next day I picked Jenelle up from school and she was only wearing one shoe. I asked, "Why aren't you wearing your shoe?" She replies, "I have a growth burn." I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a growth burn before. Jenelle's heal was hurting and she was really bothered by it. So Mrs. Hart sent her down to the nurse's office. The nurse told her, "There is nothing you can do for a growth burn." (I think Jenelle enjoys going down to the nurse's office. She has been there quite a few times. I think I need to make a contribution of band-aids to the school.)

The next morning Jenelle woke up hobbling on her one good leg still complaining of her growth burn. She looked at me with big crocodile tears in her eyes. I wasn't feeling much sympathy. I was only thinking that this was going to be a long day. She hobbled around and asked me to carry her places. She wasn't letting this thing go. So what is mom's best plan? DISTRACTION! I got her all involved in putting together Halloween costumes for Curt and I. Curt is going as a pirate and I'm going as a hula dancer. I got my outfit on and was dancing the hula. Jenelle is an expert hula dancer and she was showing me her best moves. She was dancing and then jumping on the bed. It was a miraculous healing!

Karate chop

Jenelle and Eme had a play date at the park this past week. They found some boys to play with. Boys are usually only good for playing monster games and tag. Apparently now they are good for playing ninjas, too. Jen and I were having fun talking and catching up at the park and we didn't really notice what the girls were playing. I glanced over and saw Jenelle's arms circling through the air and ending up in a really nice karate stance. I didn't think much of it. About 30 minutes later, the mom of the boys came over and scolded Jenelle and Eme. Jen and I hopped into action and found out that Jenelle had karate kicked one of the boys right in the chest. Who knew Jenelle had some karate talent in her? We sent her over to apologize. Jenelle felt really bad about kicking the boy. I wonder how hard she hit him?

You're probably wondering where did Jenelle learn her moves? I was volunteering in Jenelle's kindergarten class last week and I noticed Carson in her class doing great karate side kicks. The boy has talent. She must learn quite a bit at school from Carson.

Curt has always been a proponent for teaching Jenelle how to fight. I'm not sure why. I think it's just a guy thing. "You should know how to protect yourself." I think Jenelle would do just fine in a fight. She likes to scratch Curt and I when we're rough housing. So between her killer karate kick and her long nails, she can scratch and kick her way out of any situation. :) You go girl!

Fall Fun

Jenelle has been asking for play dates almost every day. I've been busy planning my little social butterfly's schedule. Last Wednesday we decided to drop in on Eme and see if she was available to play after school. I took the girls to the park across the street and we raked some leaves. They had so much fun. We only have pine trees in our yard. I could rake them a HUGE pine needle pile, but it would be very prickly. I might plan a caramel apple play date for next time. Yum. I'll get them all sticky and then send them out to play in the leaves. :)

20 Year High School Reunion

It's been 20 years since I graduated from Elk Grove High School. It's hard to believe. I still keep in touch with Celine (on the left) and Maureen (on the right). These girls were two of my best friends in high school.

The reunion was interesting. A lot of people looked exactly the same and I didn't even recognize some other people. It was fun to catch up and see what people are doing these days. I saw a few old boyfriends and lots of girls from the Pom Pom squad. It was great to see everyone. See you at the 30 year!

Happy Birthday to my sister and me!

I flew to Chicago this year to celebrate my birthday. Eileen turned 39 again on the 4th and my birthday was the 5th. We are posing here in matching sweaters that my dad got us. We had such a fun time. We walked around the arboretum near her house. We went out for a really nice lunch. We had a birthday cake from Jarosch bakery. They make the best cake! I got Eileen some fun "over the hill" gag gifts. She had a great sense of humor about the whole thing. They have a ping pong table now. I was able to beat David a few times. But that will probably be my last victory. David is getting really good! The visit was too short. Next time I'll bring Jenelle and we'll stay a while.

What am I teaching my child?

Several kids in the neighborhood enjoy Ding Dong Ditching our house. It happened twice just this afternoon. Jenelle wanted to play the game with me. So I crammed myself inside her little playhouse. She would knock on the door and run away. I pretended to be the irate neighbor. She couldn't stop laughing.

After a few rounds of this game, I thought I better explain how it's fun to pretend to Ding Dong Ditch, but we shouldn't bother our neighbors. She said she couldn't wait till she was older and she could play the game. I'm torn. Playing Ding Dong Ditch is something every kid has done. It's a total kid thing. But I should be teaching Jenelle good morals; not encouraging rowdy behavior.

Anyway, we're having a good time playing it at home. Look out neighbors!

The Corn Maze

Every year our church has an evening at the Chatfield Corn Maze. For $5.00 you get a meal and the corn maze. This year the maze was in the shape of a globe. Last year the shape was a witch. I was talking with another mom and I mentioned that the globe wasn't very Halloweenish. Her response was, "the world today is a very scary place." She has a point.


We met Chris and Zack there. The kids had a great time running through the maze. It took 30 minutes to find our way out. After 10 minutes of walking, I completely lost my sense of direction. Good thing Curt was there to lead us out.

I've come a long way. I'm six!

Jenelle's birthday was on Saturday. She is 6 years old. I've added a picture from Jenelle's birth. It's hard to believe she was ever that tiny.


When Jenelle turned 5, we discussed all the big girl things she would do this past year. She would:
1. Lose her first tooth -- she lost two.
2. She would put her face in the water at the pool -- she is becoming a really good swimmer.
3. She would start Kindergarten -- she loves it.

We are setting some big girl goals for age 6:
1. Ride her bike without training wheels.
2. Sleep through the night without a pull-up.
3. Swim without floaties.

We'll add to the list as we think of things.

Jenelle had a TinkerBell party this year. We invited her Kindergarten class. We had about 10 kids. The weather was perfect so we had the party across the street at the park. We played musical chairs, hot potato (with a wand) and fairy tag. The kids liked fairy tag the best. One person with a wand (or a sword) would run around and tag all the kids. If you got tagged you had to freeze and wait for a fairy to come sprinkle you with pixie dust to unfreeze you. To make the dust, I dyed salt and added glitter to make it sparkle. The kids loved running around pretending to be fairies with the dust. Jenelle got a lot of great gifts this year. I don't know where I'm going to put them all. I feel a trip to Goodwill coming. :)



Last year we had a special Cinderella cake. I wanted a cool cake this year, too. We couldn't think of what to make. I had been reading Jenelle the book, "The Trouble With Tink" and that is where we got our cake idea. TinkerBell is a pots and pans fairy that lives in a tree. We thought it would be fun to make the tree as part of our cake. Curt did all the construction work. He built the tree, did the paper mache and then spray painted in brown. The cake was a big hit with all the kids at the party.

Meet my friend Mr. Bucket

Jenelle was throwing up on Thursday. Poor kiddo. She was up a few times during the night. She woke up in the morning and said, "My room smells like puke."

I currently have a cold, so I can't smell anything. Good timing I guess. It made it a lot easier to do the clean up. Jenelle missed school on Friday. She hung out with Mr. Bucket.

She was fine by late morning. I had a bunch of birthday errands to do that day and I dragged her and Mr. Bucket around with me. We all needed a nap that day.

I miss the lazy days of summer.

The school year has started and we are very busy. I miss the lazy days of summer when we could lounge in our pajamas until at least 9:30. I wake Jenelle up every morning at 7am. She always asks why I'm getting her up so early. School! School! School! I manage to feed her a decent breakfast and get her hair semi-brushed and then we are out the door.

Jenelle is enjoying school. I picked her up from school one day and she was all excited. "Mom I got to be the wake up person and the line leader!", she said. She is making lots of new friends. She is bringing home lots of papers. Jenelle's school requires 60 hours of participation from the parents. I'm going to work in the coffee shop and I plan on volunteering in Jenelle's class a lot.

Awana has also started. Jenelle is a Spark this year. I'm also a Spark leader, just not Jenelle's Spark leader. That is on Tuesday nights.

Jenelle is in swim lessons, too. I can't wait for those to be over. In fact we are skipping lessons today. We need a break! Jenelle is becoming quite the swimmer. She is putting her face in the water without goggles even. She is well on her way. She won't need the arm floaties much longer.

Bike riding in Breckenridge

We decided to take the trail-a-bike to Frisco on Sunday. It's 9.5 miles from Frisco to Breckenridge. Jenelle had complained that her bike seat was uncomfortable so we bought her a "granny" seat. The thing was huge. Definitely a lot of room for "ample trunkage". Not that Jenelle has a big butt. Anyway, we spent the first 30 minutes of the ride trying to adjust the granny seat. It was too big and cumbersome for her little butt. She couldn't reach the peddles and her legs were just dangling. So Curt put the granny seat on his bike and gave her his bike seat. Much better! She looked stable and she could peddle. I didn't want her slipping of the bike once we reached our high cruising speeds. :) Curt on the other hand was very uncomfortable. (I returned the granny seat to Walmart today.)

We had a great ride. The weather and the ride was beautiful. We had a yummy lunch at The Motherload. It was the first restaurant that we came to. It smelled great and we were starving. After lunch we walked around the art festival a little. We noticed a storm coming in. So we rode our bikes back. It started raining so Jenelle and I hung out at the furniture store while Curt rode back to get the car. Everything in the furniture store was that log furniture you find in mountain homes. All very expensive, but a fun place to take shelter from the rain. Thanks to Curt for self sacrificing by using the granny seat and riding in the rain. He's the best dad/husband ever. He is watching "Barbie in Swan Lake" with Jenelle right now. Cute, huh?


There were a lot of bronze statues at the art festival. I have lots of photos of Jenelle with all the different animals.









We were all tired by the time we got home.

Labor Day weekend fun

We went tubing this weekend. After spending the weekend in Steamboat Springs and wishing we would have gone tubing; Curt bought some inner tubes. The Platte Canyon river is very near our house. I would say it was more of a stream. Anyway, it was perfect conditions. It was a hot day. The water was pleasantly cool. Jenelle and I shared a raft. The first time down the river she kept saying "We're going to die." Yes, she is very melodramatic. She was nervous on the rapids, but after our first run she was just fine. We went with Chris and Zack. We cruised down the river for about a mile and then drove back up to do it all over again. It was the perfect Labor day activity.

Hair Cut

I got my hair cut last week. I decided I needed something shorter and easier. I need any time savers I can get so I can get Jenelle to school on time. When Jenelle saw my hair she said, "It's badish goodish." Notice she said it was bad first. I haven't had my hair this short since Junior year of high school. It wasn't a very good look for me back then because I had this horrible perm. It's taking some getting used to, but overall it's goodish.

Trail-a-bike

We went for a bike ride this weekend in Waterton Canyon. We haven't been on many bike rides this summer because of Curt's broken wrist. His wrist is finally doing better and he can ride with the brace on.

Curt always keeps an eye out for free things on Craigslist or good deals on the classifieds at his work. I think he secretly likes to shop. :) Anyway, he found a used trail-a-bike for $40. Jenelle can ride her own bike, but she tires out and complains about her legs hurting on every hill. If we want to do any kind of long distance ride, she needs to ride in the bike seat. Well, she is getting way too small for the bike seat. Her knees are up to her chest in that thing and her knees dig into Curt's back. So we have upgraded her to the trail-a-bike. She loved it. At first she asked Curt to go real slow. By the end of the ride she said, "Daddy don't brake. Pedal faster."

On the way down the canyon, Curt got a flat tire. We checked the bike bags for our spare tube and tools. My bag contained leaves and rocks that Jenelle wanted to keep from the last ride. Curt's bag contained a bag of carrots that had turned to liquid mush. Hmmm...I thought we were better prepared. All we had was a bike pump. So we're trying to figure out how to finish the last 4 miles of our ride without Jenelle having to walk the whole way. Finally I started asking "spare tube?" to other bikers whizzing past us. A really nice couple stopped and gave us a spare tube and they let us use their tools. Next time we will have everything we need to fix a flat.

Waterton Canyon is such a beautiful place to ride. It's a big horn sheep habitat. A bunch of sheep were grazing right off the trail. (See the sheep in the background behind Jenelle.) We saw some male sheep with the big horns, but we didn't stop to photograph them. I don't want to disturb the males. It was really fun to see all the sheep. Sort of a combo bike ride/zoo trip.

First Day of Kindergarten

I'm so behind on the blog! We've been gone every weekend and I've been busy getting Jenelle ready for school. I haven't had any time to sit down at the computer and update everyone. So my entries will all be out of order, but you get the gist.



Jenelle started school this week at Front Range Christian Elementary. She is in Kindergarten. We had a "meet-n-greet" with her teacher last week. She gave Mrs. Hart a hug and kiss. She loves all her teachers.

We had orientation on Monday. Jenelle was sitting at her desk looking so studious. She was glued to everything the teacher was saying. How long will that last? I think she is going to get in trouble for talking too much with all her friends.

Her first official day was Wednesday. She will go to school all day Mon, Wed and Friday. I picked her up from school and this is what she said. "Mom, not one, not two. We went out for recess three times!" She is very excited about the playground at the school. She said her favorite part of the day was lunchtime. They ate outside at a picnic table and she thought that was very cool.

In the afternoon they have rest time. Jenelle fell asleep the first day. She is wiped out from all that recess! Hopefully she'll build a little more stamina soon.

On the first day of school they had a "coffee and kleenex" time for the moms. I was a little sad about Jenelle starting Kindergarten, but I didn't need a kleenex. (Not to say I haven't shed a tear over kindergarten.) This is just a new phase we're entering and I'll adjust. I told Jenelle that I will miss her while she's in school. She basically rolled her eyes at me and said she'd be home after school. Like what was the big deal.

Here she is sitting at her desk next to Carson. Carson was offering to help her open her play doh on the first day of school. Jenelle still talks about marrying Sam from preschool, but I don't think it will be long before Jenelle will be marrying Carson.



This new school has a policy for tardiness. They lock the doors at 8am and if you're late you have to go down to the office and get a pass. Today was the second day of school and we arrived at 8:00am according to my watch. The principal was standing at the door and she said I was late. The clock on their wall said 8:01. We were heading down to the office for our pass when I saw another dad with his kindergarten child. I asked if he was getting a pass. He pointed out another clock that said 7:59. I think we got by on the technicality today, but I don' t think the principal was too pleased. I'm not making a very good first impression. Hopefully, she isn't very good at remembering faces. :) Getting to school on time is going to be our biggest challenge. Jenelle is just slow in the morning. She is slow all the time! I've got to get us in a better routine in the morning and I think I'm going to set all the clocks 5 minutes early.

Camping at Eleven Mile

We did a two day camping trip to Eleven Mile State Park this past weekend. We went with Chris, Zack and Nathan, Chris' dad. The kids had a great time. They got to go fishing. They played in the tents. They went exploring and they consumed a fair amount of smores.




Jenelle's idea of fishing is kinda funny. It's more a contest to see who can cast their pole the farthest. She is quite the good caster. She can almost cast her pole better then her dad. So 10 seconds after Jenelle gets her worm in the water she is asking if she can reel it back in so she can cast again. We didn't catch a single fish, but I don't think she cared.



I was a little disappointed with our campsite. There was one hiking trail that went along the lake, but the trail was one big ant hill. If you didn't keep moving the ants would swarm your feet. If you haven't gone for a hike with a 5 year old lately, they stop every 2 seconds to pick up a rock or look at a flower or watch a bird fly by. We were almost yelling at the kids to keep moving because the ants were so bad. Not a very good hike. We tried again later along a rocky trail. The ants weren't bad and the kids had fun climbing on the rocks, but we ran into two dead carcasses. Half the bones were picked clean and the other half of the animal still had skin on it. Very gross, but the kids were fascinated. They wanted to know when the animal was going to be alive again. We said the animal is dead. "Dead dead?" was their reply. Like they know of another kind of dead.

The campsite was also lacking trees. I really love that pine smell. We drove 2.5 hours to get to the park. If I'm going to drive that far, I want nice scenery. We did have a nice time, but I don't think we'll camp there again anytime soon.

We almost didn't stay for the second night. The wind was blowing so bad and our tent doesn't do well in the wind. The wind caved half the tent in. We considered going home. Jenelle was concerned that we would be leaving before the smores portion of the evening. The wind eventually died down and we stayed the second night and had a lot of fun.

Next weekend we are camping at Jellystone up in Estes Park. Jenelle's cousins are coming to town and we're all going up to camp. Check out the blog for our next camping adventure.

Mount Evans - Echo Lake Hike

We did a fun hike a few weeks ago. We did the Chicago Lakes trail at Mt. Evans. We went there once before this summer. This time we were going to hike to the lakes. It's a beautiful place to hike, but it is fairly steep. We hiked for about an hour and we ran into another hiker. We asked him how far to the lakes. He said, "About 40 minutes." We hiked another hour thinking that the lakes had to be around the next corner. We went around quite a few more corners and still no lakes. We ran into another hiker who said the lakes were another 20 minutes. We were pretty tired at this point. We had eaten all our snacks already and it was 1:30pm. We were ready for lunch and we still had a two hour hike back to the car. Ugh! It's a good thing that Jenelle ate most of the snacks. So she was all happy and cheerful on the hike back; while Curt and I were all grumpy and hungry.

We finished off the day with a nice lunch. I'm disappointed that we didn't make it to the lakes, but maybe another time.

Swimming fun.

Jenelle and I have been to the pool a lot this summer. We didn't go much last summer because Jenelle would cry every time she got splashed in the face (which happened quite often.) What a difference a year makes. She is putting her face in the water and kicking and paddling. She almost swam the length of the pool (coming up for air, of course.) She is doing great. We saw some other kids swimming without floaties. Jenelle gave it a go, but sunk immediately and cried. So we'll use the floaties for a while longer.

Bunny update

We have caught 5 bunnies so far. We caught the baby and Jenelle name him Hoppity. We took Hoppity to the Leawood Park. We play there often and there is a huge deck for bunny protection. There are lots of other rabbits there. We will visit Hoppity in the future. Maybe we'll bring him some carrots!

Happy Birthday to Curt

Curt had his birthday July 9th. In this house you don't just celebrate your birthday; we celebrate your birthday week. We started out the week going to breakfast at a new place. The Country Road Cafe in Kittredge. They have the best breakfast there. No more eating at IHOP for us. We made cupcakes on Wed. We wrapped up the week with a date night at Carrabba's and a movie.

Curt wouldn't want me to reveal his age on the blog, so I won't. But he just broke his first bone. He's like a teenager! :)